Voter records system too flawed, counties say

Concerned by registration woes in early voting, many want the state to get rid of it

Published 5:30 am, Thursday, May 3, 2007

A $14 million centralized voting-records system used by 224 Texas counties has so many computer flaws that voter registration officials in many counties want the state to scrap it.

The system already has kicked registered voters' names off the lists during early voting that started Monday and forced others to wait as long as 10 minutes while the system verified voter registration. One of those left off the rolls was Prairie View Mayor Frank Jackson.

The system, intended to meet federal requirements for centralizing voter information statewide, has been plagued by so many problems since it began operating in January that some counties want out after the May 12 election.

"This new database is causing statewide voting problems. ... It's a bad technology system coming home to roost."

Harris and 27 other counties foresaw problems with an untried system and never joined but still endure delays because they are required to update voter registration in the state system daily.

At least 17 jurisdictions started early voting Monday without current lists of registered voters, the secretary of state's office said.

Collin County Elections Administrator Sharon Rowe, who decided not to join TEAM, said it has taken as long as two weeks to input information for a single voter.

Information not recognized

Among the reported problems:

• Registration numbers for voters registered before Jan. 1 were changed and the old numbers erased from the system. This caused confusion this week during early voting in the Clear Lake school district election when the old numbers were not recognized by the computer.
• In Galveston County, TEAM would not allow officials to print new voter registration cards.
• TEAM kicked some voters off the rolls because it did not recognize the city of Galveston's unique system of using letters of the alphabet and fractions as street addresses.
TEAM replaces Texas Voter Registration System, an older system that many election officials want to return to. The old system included only officials involved in voter registration. TEAM is designed to also include officials who administer the election, who in many counties are different from those who oversee voter registration.

Three counties that began using the system in January — Bastrop, Kerr and Rockwall — have withdrawn from the system run by the Secretary of State's Office, office spokesman Scott Haywood said. Tarrant County commissioners will decide next week whether to withdraw and spend $700,000 for their own system, Tarrant County Elections Administrator Steve Raborn said.

"We want to get off-line because of the difficulties we have encountered," Raborn said.

The Web-based system developed by IBM and voting-machine maker Hart InterCivic of Austin was adopted to comply with the Help America Vote Act of 2002, enacted by Congress in reaction to uproar and allegations of fraud during the 2000 presidential election. The act requires each state to centralize its voter information.

Hart InterCivic, which provided the software, said in a statement that it is working with the prime contractor, IBM, to fix a complex system linking many databases. "Hart, along with everyone on the team, remains committed to work towards an efficient, cost-effective voter registration system for Texas that complies with federal law," the statement said.

Fear for their jobs

Arth, carrying a sheaf of complaints from tax assessor-collectors, met with Secretary of State
Roger Williams
two weeks ago to voice her membership's complaints.

One of those demands was that the Secretary of State's Office take the heat for all the problems. "We are elected and the people are going to throw us out of office because you won't take the hit for this," Johnson said about the demand.

Johnson outlined her complaints about the system in a March 26 letter to state legislators from Galveston County.

The letter said two full-time staffers were registering 25 voters per day with TEAM, compared with 100 to 150 per day before adopting the system. Other problems included inaccurate voter history and, "of grave concern, voter registration ID numbers have changed entirely and historical numbers are gone."

Williams' office said Wednesday that it would review the system after the May 12 elections. "At this point, it's not performing as well as it should," Haywood said. "Right now the main focus is on getting the counties the support they need — then we can evaluate the system after the election."

Williams sent a letter to counties using the system Wednesday apologizing for the extra burden it has placed on election staff.

"Having an unanticipated statewide election occur in conjunction with thousands of local elections has put TEAM to the test much earlier than most could have predicted. However, I do hope that the worst is behind us."

Andrea Gibbud, Bee County tax assessor-collector, said it took weeks for her office to get voter lists for early voting, but it will have barely more than 72 hours to get new lists for the May 12 election. She said voters calling in to find out where to vote must wait 10 minutes or longer while the computer grinds out the information.

A separate committee looked at the IBM-Hart InterCivic proposal and another by VOTEC, and narrowly recommended VOTEC, said committee member Danny Clayton, Dallas County voter registration supervisor. The IBM-Hart InterCivic bid was $13.9 million and the VOTEC bid $13.1 million, Haywood said.

Bettencourt said then-Secretary of State Geoffrey Connor overruled the committee and awarded the contract to IBM-Hart InterCivic. He said Connor allowed the vendor to substitute the system it sold to the state with another, untried system.

"I would have never picked a product that has not been proven to work," Bettencourt said. "Apparently, it was selected because of its future capability."